


Kick at the darkness til it bleeds daylight

by Yukichouji



Series: Lovers in a dangerous time [2]
Category: Archie Comics & Related Fandoms, Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Established Relationship, Fluff and Smut, Hard of Hearing Jughead Jones, I don't know what else to tag this, M/M, Protective Fangs Fogarty, Protective Sweet Pea (Riverdale), Soft Sweet Pea (Riverdale), Struggling Jughead Jones, Though not super detailed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:55:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23095198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yukichouji/pseuds/Yukichouji
Summary: Coping with his broken hearing aid is about as hard, as he’d feared it would be. The list of problems it’s causing is roughly as long as his forearm and he’s doing his best to try and find ways to work around those problems, but it’s really starting to eat away at his reserves. Point number one on the list is having to avoid his family, especially his parents. He can’t risk going back home, because he can’t risk his mom finding out about it.ORJughead struggles with his current predicament. But the Serpents have his back.
Relationships: Jughead Jones/Sweet Pea
Series: Lovers in a dangerous time [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1659886
Comments: 8
Kudos: 75





	Kick at the darkness til it bleeds daylight

**Author's Note:**

> Second try at filling gypsymishka's [tumblr](https://yukichouji.tumblr.com/) prompt. _Still_ not 100% what you asked for, but it's the best I could do. Hope you enjoy anyway :)
> 
> In other words, more Hoh!Jughead.
> 
> For additional warnings and disclaimers see end of chapter notes.
> 
> Both the title and the name of the series are shamelessly stolen from the lyrics of Bruce Cockburn's 'Lovers in a dangerous time'. As I mentioned in the previous work of this series, the song itself is not really after my taste, but I love the lyrics.

~*~*~

Coping with his broken hearing aid is about as hard, as he’d feared it would be. The list of problems it’s causing is roughly as long as his forearm and he’s doing his best to try and find ways to work around those problems, but it’s really starting to eat away at his reserves. Point number one on the list is having to avoid his family, especially his parents. He can’t risk going back home, because he can’t risk his mom finding out about it.

It’s bitter, but he’s pretty sure she wouldn’t hesitate for a second to use it against him, if she knew. She’d play the Hell out of it with his dad, probably make him kick Jughead out of the police trainee program he’d set up for the Serpents, or make him disband it all together. She’d use it as an excuse to take from Jughead whatever she could get away with and she’d make damn sure her Gargoyles knew about his weak spot and how to use it against the Serpents. So he’s been crashing at the camp for the last couple of days, sharing Sweet Pea’s tent, only going back to the house to get some clothes and a couple of essentials and leave notes to his parents, when he knows it’ll be empty. Texting his dad on the regular to make sure he doesn’t worry too much.

Because his dad has been doing so good, finally, after all this time, so much so that it’s still a little hard for Jughead to wholly believe it, and he couldn’t live with himself, if he’d end up jeopardizing that. So he makes up excuse after excuse for not being around, like having to deal with Serpent related issues, working on a school project with Archie, staying at school late to finish an article for the Blue and Gold, wanting to spend some time with his boyfriend. Luckily, his dad has never been especially strict or overly obsessed with keeping tabs on him, so he gets away with it easily enough. At least for now. There’s no telling when his mom will get suspicious and what kind of poison she’ll whisper in his dad’s ear to get to Jughead.

All he can do at the moment is hold his breath and hope that he can buy himself as much time as possible before that particular pile of shit hits the fan.

Point number two is the Serpents themselves, or, to be more precise, Jughead’s position as their leader. The Serpents are doing their best to accommodate him in his current predicament. They do their best to speak more slowly, when he’s around, to make sure they’re facing him when they do, so that he’s got a chance to read their lips. They wait for him to write out the stuff he wants to say patiently, because he doesn’t trust his voice, doesn’t trust his ability to articulate himself clearly when he can’t hear himself. They tread more carefully around him, do their best to not touch him when he can’t see them and startle the Hell out of him or to just clamber into his field of vision out of no-where.

It’s not, like there’s anything wrong with his mind, which has always been his most valuable commodity in his leadership. But, even though the others are doing their damnedest to not let it show, Jughead can see the extra strain the situation is causing them, can see it wear away at them as much as it does at him and he hates hit. Viciously so. Because the last thing he wants to be to anyone is a fucking burden, and in his current situation, that’s exactly what he’s become.

He can see the way that they look at him, when they think he’s not paying attention, too, the pity, the worry on their faces. It’s not meant as an insult, Jughead is reasonably sure of that, but he can’t help the way it makes him want to punch someone. So he tries to keep his social interactions with the others to a bare minimum, just to ease the strain on them a little. Keeps to meetings and missions and all of the essentials, because like Hell he’s dropping out of any of that, but leaves off anything more casual, if he can help it. Just to not ruin it for them by forcing them to bow to his needs and breaking the easy flow of things as they normally would be.

Or, if he can’t avoid it, he sits with the others but keeps in the background, lets them talk and joke and do as they otherwise would while he contents himself with the snippets of conversation he can catch or just tunes out completely. Content with watching their faces light up and their hands fly about in those rare moments of carelessness. It’s enough for him, for now, he tells himself, and tries his hardest to not let that pervasive sense of isolation get to him.

Because that’s what it feels like, with his hearing aid broken and the world reduced to a dull, cottony silence, like a TV set with the volume broken. It’s like one of the things connecting him to the rest of the world has been taken away and he’s no longer fully a part of it. Like he’s just looking in from the outside, through a frosty window pane, something vital and hard to explain missing. And that feeds into the constant, slowly growing, loneliness he can feel take hold in him, even when he’s with the others and he hates that so much, because it’s not fair to them, when they’re trying so hard.

Because that’s the way that things _used_ to be, before he found the Serpents. He’d sworn to himself that he’d never go back to that, if he could help it at all. And yet, here he is.

So, to fight all that, Jughead does what he can to be useful where it counts and to not let the others see how he’s struggling. They stick to their plans with the Gargoyles, going after their hide-outs, trying to systematically drive them out of town to ultimately do the same to Jughead’s mom and to get closer to figuring out who the Gargoyle King really is, while they’re at it. And Jughead makes sure to be a part of every single one of those raids, since he can’t man the radio back at the base anymore. Even if most of those missions take place at night. What with them still having to attend school and all that.

Since most of the missions are stealth missions anyway, and being quiet is a key component, Jughead doesn’t even feel all that much of a burden most of the time. Plus, this is where the police training comes in really handy, because he can easily communicate with the others via the hand signs they learned there. The only times it gets tricky for him is, if the dark closes in a little too much and he can’t quite smother the fear that sits in his belly like a tightly curled rope. That irrational fear that he’ll turn around and the others will be gone and he’ll be left alone in the woods to fend for himself, unable to see or hear the approaching enemy.

Because in the dark, the one sense he relies on most now that his hearing is gone, is dulled down, too, no longer sufficient and he can’t help thinking back to that all-encompassing darkness of before, to being pinned down and buried under a wall of rubble and unable to tell, if anyone is coming for him at all. It makes his throat feel tight and sticky and his hands clammy and unreliable. In order to work around that, Jughead makes sure that he’s never the one taking point on these missions, unlike the way they used to do it, sees to it that there’s always one other person there with him, in front of him, whom Jughead can use both as a metaphorical canary in the mines to pick up any sound Jughead can’t and warn him, and as a visual guide to hold fast to.

Usually that person is either Sweet Pea or Fangs, because they’re the ones Jughead knows best, they’re the ones in who’s capability he trusts the most and whom he feels safest around. They’re the ones he knows won’t call him out, if he touches more than usual. Because Jughead does. In small and subtle ways whenever he thinks he can get away with it. The tips of his fingers brushing up against the back of Fang’s leather jacket, or the sleeve of Sweet Pea’s. Carefully, loosely circling Sweet Pea’s wrist, when they crouch down close to one another to spy out the terrain.

Small things that help keep Jughead grounded, connected to the world around him, that lessen the growing sense of isolation, re-assure him that he’s not alone. Jughead knows that it’s stupid and childish to need that sort of anchoring in the first place, but he just can’t help it and, if anyone notices, they don’t mention it. There’s no judgment being cast his way.

On the contrary even, because as Fangs and Sweet Pea begin to catch on, like Jughead knew they would (they’re, neither of them, stupid or ignorant like that), they begin to subtly return the gestures. A brush of elbows or hands as they move past him, an unobtrusive hand on his shoulder or the back of his neck when Jughead needs to shift his focus away from the others and up ahead, towards their current goal. Always in the dark, always when he needs it most.

And, when they’re alone or not out on missions, it almost seems like Sweet Pea can’t keep his hands off of Jughead at all anymore. A strong, broad arm around Jughead’s shoulders or his waist, keeping him close, their fingers carefully intertwined as they walk. Never in a way that’s obtrusive or presumptuous, never in a way that makes Jughead feel uncomfortable or crowded. Just safe and comforting and it doesn’t seem like anyone’s thinking too much of it, like it’s hurting the way they see him.

When they’re alone in Sweet Pea’s tent at night, Jughead does his best to show him how grateful he is. Not with words, because those don’t come easy at the moment, but with touches of his own, with the way his body leans into Sweet Pea’s. And that’s maybe one of the things Jughead misses the most, being able to hear the sounds Sweet Pea makes when he’s fucking Jughead. The gratification of making Sweet Pea moan, those soft little gasps, the way he says Jughead’s name like he just can’t help himself.

On the other hand though, being robbed of one sense makes him focus more on the others. On touch and taste and smell. Sweet Pea’s hands on his naked skin, the slide of his own palms as he maps out Sweet Pea’s body inch by inch. Sweet Pea’s lips where they press kisses along the arch of his neck or suck bruises onto his chest. Salt and spice and heat when he swallows Sweet Pea down, the stretch of Jughead’s lips around the thick of him perfect, the way he’s hyper focused on every shift of Sweet Pea’s body, every shiver, every twitch that speaks of pleasure.

The way Sweet Pea’s hands feel when they dig into Jughead’s hair, fingers trailing across his scalp in a way that makes him hum around Sweet Pea’s dick in his mouth and Sweet Pea’s hips stutter forward in turn. The way Sweet Pea’s scent breaks up into different components that all carry a warmth of their own, heat even, where his musk is stronger and Jughead likes that, too.

Or the way Jughead falls apart when Sweet Pea opens him up with his fingers, agonizingly slow and thorough, and then fucks Jughead like that’s the sole most important task Sweet Pea’s ever set for himself, thick and hard and perfect inside of him. And Jughead has to try so hard to keep himself quiet then, lips pressed together until they ache, because he doesn’t trust his own voice, the volume of it, and while it feels in these moments like their little world ends at the canvass of Sweet Pea’s tent, the others are still very much there, their little camp huddled close as if that can ward off the cold of the slowly advancing fall. It’s both less and more in a way Jughead finds hard to explain and it helps fend off the aching loneliness, the creeping sense of isolation more than anything else.

After, when they’re both sweaty and sated, Sweet Pea wraps himself around Jughead until it feels like he’s a warm and heavy blanket and Jughead is a little embarrassed to admit how much he loves it. Being held like that. It feels like there’s nothing out there in the cold or the dark that can touch them. Nothing at all. It’s a dangerous way to feel, Jughead thinks sometimes, because of how it lures him into letting his guard down, because of how easy it would be to believe that this feeling is something that has any chance at all of becoming a reality for them one day.

He needs a certain level of fear to keep him going, to keep his mind sharp and alert and he can’t really afford to let go of that before he’s sure that Riverdale is safe again, before he’s dealt with his mom, with G&G, the Gargoyles and the Gargoyle King, the weird cult that has taken root here, or the aftermath of Hiram Lodge’s sinister plans. Maybe he can manage to find a balance between this feeling and that, somehow. It’s just another thing to figure out, another item on his long list. Coming right after finding a way to fix his hearing aid dilemma.

But it’s been a long couple of days and something tells Jughead that it won’t be getting any better anytime soon. Maybe it can be OK to just let himself have this for now and not question it too much. There are so few things in life that are truly _good_ , Jughead can attest to that from experience. So maybe it’s not that horrible to want to hold onto them, when he finds them, with all of the strength he can find in his soul.

~*~*~

**Author's Note:**

> _I have no experiences with being hoh and while I did a little bit of research, I know I probably won't have managed an accurate depiction of what it's like. I in no way mean any harm or disrespect. This is a work of fiction and is meant for entertainment purposes only._
> 
> _The negative view Jughead has on his condition in no way reflects my own view on it and I sincerely hope that no-one feels offended by any of this. If you do find that I got something grossly wrong, please feel free to let me know~_
> 
> This still holds true. Thank you for reading! <3


End file.
